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9212 Results

May 14, 1997

The changing business activities of banks in Canada

Over the last 30 years, the business mix of banks in Canada has changed significantly. Progress in information-processing technology, legislative changes, and market forces have combined to blur the traditional distinctions between banks and other financial institutions and have allowed banks to offer a much wider range of products and services. In this article, the author reviews the expansion of bank lending to households over this period and their recent movement into personal wealth management. While these trends were facilitated by revisions to legislation, they also reflected the changing needs of the "baby boom" generation, first as home-buyers and, more recently, as middle-aged investors. On the commercial and corporate side, banks reacted to the rapid expansion of securities markets (and to the reduced demand for intermediation by both lenders/depositors and borrowers) by moving into investment banking, after legislative changes opened this business to them in the late 1980s. They also used their expertise in credit assessment and risk management to provide credit guarantees and to act as counterparties and intermediaries in derivatives markets. Notable in this broadening of bank activities has been their more recent entry into the trust, mutual fund, and retail brokerage business. The banks have also made preliminary forays into insurance. The expansion of off-balance-sheet activities has made fee income an increasingly important part of bank earnings. The article also looks at the emerging tools and techniques that will most likely transform the structure of banking in the future.

Monetary Shocks in the G-6 Countries: Is There a Puzzle?

Staff Working Paper 1997-7 Ben Fung, Marcel Kasumovich
This paper attempts to reduce the uncertainty about the dynamics of the monetary transmission mechanism. Central to this attempt is the identification of monetary policy shocks. Recently, VAR approaches that use over-identifying restrictions have shown success in isolating such shocks.

Fads or Bubbles?

Staff Working Paper 1997-2 Huntley Schaller, Simon van Norden
This paper tests between fads and bubbles using a new empirical strategy (based on switching-regression econometrics) for distinguishing between competing asset-pricing models. By extending the Blanchard and Watson (1982) model, we show how stochastic bubbles can lead to regime-switching in stock market returns.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets JEL Code(s): C, C4, C40, G, G1, G12

L'endettement du Canada et ses effets sur les taux d'intérêt réels de long terme

Staff Working Paper 1996-14 Jean-François Fillion
This paper examines the effects that Canada's indebtedness has on Canadian real long-term interest rates, using the vector error-correction model (VECM). Our results show that there is a strongly cointegrated relationship between real interest rates in Canada, U.S. real interest rates, and Canadian public and external debt ratios.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Fiscal policy, Interest rates JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43, F, F3, F30, H, H6, H60

An Intraday Analysis of the Effectiveness of Foreign Exchange Intervention

Staff Working Paper 1999-4 Neil Beattie, Jean-François Fillion
This paper assesses the effectiveness of Canada's official foreign exchange intervention in moderating intraday volatility of the Can$/US$ exchange rate, using a 2-1/2-year sample of 10-minute exchange rate data. The use of high frequency data (higher than daily frequency) should help in assessing the impact of intervention since the foreign exchange market is efficient and […]
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Exchange rates, Financial markets JEL Code(s): F, F3, F31, G, G1, G15
May 27, 1998

Globalized Financial Markets and Monetary Policy

Remarks Gordon Thiessen La Conférence de Montréal Montréal, Quebec
Globalization - that is, the growing integration and interdependence of national economies - is changing dramatically the economic landscape. Countries are trading more goods and services, an increasing number of firms now operate across national borders, and savers and borrowers have greater access than ever before to global financial markets.
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